SEXUAL HEALING
The rise of self-care and sexual awakenings
There’s a big warehouse in Wellington’s Grenada North. Thirty-five thousand square feet type of big. Its industrial-style shelves are lined with bright blue crates that reach 3.5 metres high, and in each crate are decanted sex toys. At any one time there could be as many as 800,000 items in this warehouse. Vibrators, clitoral stimulators, dildos, whips, restraints—the works.
“If you can dream it,” says the owner of Adult toy mega store Ni cola Relph,“I think we’ll have it ”.
For Relph, business is booming. It was well documented that her company tripled its sales over New Zealand’s first national lockdown back in March 2020. And their sales show over 600,000 items have been bought in the past year alone. It’s not just them. The Guardian reports the sex-tech industry is worth US$30 billion as of 2020—while the sexual wellness industry is forecast to hit $122.6 billion by 2026. So what is driving these soaring sales? Well, quite a few things, it turns out, but at the forefront is the idea that sexual pleasure (whether with a partner or solo) is a form of self-care.
THE RISE OF SEXUAL WELLNESS
The term sexual wellness certainly wasn’t something I learnt about growing up. In fact, at my Catholic girls’ (read: repressed) secondary school, the closest conversation my friends and I had to the subject was from a teacher putting the FEAR OF GOD into us that sex, at any time during your cycle, will lead to pregnancy. So I contacted certified holistic sexuality coach Melissa Vranjes who explains that “sexual wellness is an important part of your wellbeing that’s
I SEE SOCIAL MEDIA NORMALISING ALL TYPES OF SEXUAL PREFERENCES AND WOMEN INVESTING IN SEXUAL WELLNESS AS A PRIORITY FOR THEIR HEALTH.
often overlooked”.
“It focuses on prioritising pleasure and exploring your intimate self to maintain vitality for deeper relationships, either with yourself or others,” she says.
When I ask Relph the same thing, she says she sees sexual wellness as “the third piece of the triangle”. “People have talked about physical health a lot—you know, make sure you go out for a walk and get X many minutes of physical activity a day to be healthy,” she says. “Then came along emotional wellness—making sure you’ve got downtime and mindfulness. Now the third piece of the triangle is your sexual wellness. And the cool thing is that sexual wellness is just about having a healthy and fulfilling sex life and meeting your own sexual needs. People are just now more understanding that it’s important and part of human nature.”
Being open about your sexual wellbeing has definitely been championed by the younger generation —and is now seen alongside other self-care rituals like taking a long bath or getting a facial. There is now a widespread understanding that sexual pleasure is integral to your wellbeing. TENGA, an adult sex toy company, says America is becoming more open towards masturbation and sexuality. For the past five years they have published a yearly ‘Self-Pleasure Report’, which looks at habits related to sex, masturbation and sex toy usage. According to their latest 2020 report, they found 80 per cent of Americans now consider masturbation to be a form of self-care. That’s up from 54 per cent in 2016, which shows Americans are more open to discussing masturbation with their loved ones, and are more likely to use masturbation as a form of self-care. Maybe there’s something positive to come out of all that alone time during the pandemic after all!
Today, women are not only having these conversations with friends, but they’re sharing their thoughts with their followers on social media. Recently, influencer Millie Elder Holmes shared a story to